Old Wives Tale
by AshleyElizabeth1630
Summary: Halloween went a little differently causing a chain of events no one could have expected.


Old Wives Tale

Chapter One: Girl Anachronism

_October 24th 1998  
_

"Mom Please?" Buffy wined slightly, Joyce looked at her eldest daughter and finaly gave in to her pleading.

"Fine. Buffy, but anything happens to the dress and you're grounded for a month" Joyce smiled and sighed at Buffy's reaction

Buffy squealed in delight, she had found the most beautiful ivory dress in the attic in a trunk she hadn't known existed. It turned out the dress belonged to her great grandmother Clara, when Buffy first saw it she knew that she wanted to wear it on Halloween. She and Willow had gone through Giles' watcher diaries to see what the women from Angel's time had looked like, and Clara's dress was almost the same as the drawing in the book.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Buffy jumped up and down.

"I'm only saying yes because we're tight on money right now and..." Buffy wasn't even listening. Joyce shook her head.

"Look mom I loved to chat but I'm meeting Willow at that new Halloween store, Ethan's. I think I'm gonna pick up a veil and some flowers to go with the dress." Joyce looked at her amused and grabbed a soda from the fridge

"Doesn't that scare the boys' away honey?" letting out a soft chuckle she thought about how times have changed.

"Yeah well actually there is a boy, and uh, well, he's really into old fashioned stuff and I'm sure he'll love it." Buffy beamed, the far off gaze startling her mother slightly. It wasn't often she saw that look and the last time it had been trouble.

"Oh really, a boy you say? Why am I just now hearing about this young lady?" She sounded like she was only jokingly upset but Buffy could sense that her mom was worried.

"Well it's new and I didn't want it to be a big thing." Buffy shrugged it off and Joyce let it go.

"Ok well you better get going, we'll talk later ok?"

"Sure mom. Bye." with her daughter's quick good-bye Joyce hoped that it wasn't the beginning of something bad.

When Buffy finally arrived at her destination, she was mumbling to herself about having to walk everywhere. She wondered if somehow she could use being responsible with her grandmother's dress as a bartering tool for proving to her mom that she was responsible enough to handle a driver's license. She looked around for Willow but had some difficulty spotting the petite redhead, the new store was becoming quite a hit and she realized now that she should have come earlier to beat the crowd. She finally found Willow sitting on a bench just to the right of the main entrance watching timidly as other patrons left, most of them pulling their costumes out of their bags to show their friends.

"There you are!" Buffy sighed, "I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find you, it's pretty crazy huh?"

Willow nodded, "I swear I have counted at least 200 people coming and going within the last half hour, and like 90 percent of the girls...sex costumes"

"You've been here for 30...wait, sex costumes?" Buffy raised an eyebrow.

"Ok, well maybe not 'sex costumes' but sexy costumes. What ever happened to the clowns we dressed up as when we were kids?"

"Will, if you are going to try and snag Xander you should probably not dress up as his biggest fear"

"Oh yeah" the girls giggled as they started weaving through the masses to get farther into the store.

As they weaved through the store a little monster on a pedestal by the door screamed and cackled loudly, Buffy whipped her head around to see what made the noise ready to knock out the culprit but upon realizing it was just a toy put on an embarrassed smile.

"Not going to slay the evil battery operated kids' device?" Willow asked slyly.

"Very funny, I'm so tired I'm off my game. You know Giles has got me running around every night trying to find out more about this prophecy he found in one of his almanacs. Of course, the almanac doesn't say what the prophecy is about but, you know what? Now that I think about it, none of the prophecies are ever described what they're literally about. You'd think they would fix that to maybe halt impending apocolypseseses..." she trailed off not really knowing what the plural for apocalypse was.

Willow smiled and turned to look around the store, her eyes wide with amazement. This store had everything.

"What is the plural for apocalypse?" Buffy wondered out loud.

"Ethan" Willow said absentmindedly.

"Really?" Buffy said shocked, feeling like she clearly missed something.

"What? No, Ethan, the store owner that has to be him" Willow said as she pointed across the shop at a tall, slim man who was pointing out different costumes on the wall to another customer. When he looked over and saw them looking at him he excused himself and walked over to speak to them.

"Welcome to Ethan's! Home of the most realistic costumes you'll ever see. I am, of course, Ethan." he said while smirking.

Both Buffy and Willow noted he was British and seemed to be a mixture between Giles, and something a bit rawer. Buffy got an odd feeling from him but chose to brush it off since she'd been paranoid as of late.

"Hi, I'm Buffy, this is Willow. I actually already have my costume but I am looking for a couple of accessories, I'm not sure if you'll what I am looking for though" She knew that it would be weird to find a veil and fake flowers at a Halloween store.

"I'm sure we can find something to fit what you are looking for. Now, what is your costume?" Ethan inquired, a fake plastic smile on his face.

"Well I found a wedding dress that used to belong to my great grandmother so I'm looking for maybe a veil and flowers?"

"The veil I can help you with but the flowers I would suggest you go to the florist down the street, I noticed as I was coming in that they were having a sale." He replied as he led the girls to the back of his store. "Most of our hair accessories aren't as lavish as veils, we just have this one" he pulled down an exquisite pearly cream veil with sequins around the crown.

"Oh it's gorgeous" Buffy breathed...and then nearly stopped breathing when she turned over the price tag. "75 dollars? There is no way I can afford this"

"Nonsense" Ethan replied, "I'm sure we can come up with a price that is more fitting."

_October 31st_

Buffy looked herself up and down in the mirror one last time, finally deciding that if Angel didn't respond to her looking like this she would give up. Yeah, right.

She grabbed her flowers and headed downstairs to wait, the rest of the gang would be at her house soon and she had a feeling it was going to be a long night.

TBC

A/N: Sorry for the cut off I have the next part ready to edit and will be up shortly.


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